1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention is in the field of grid computing and more particularly, exception processing in grid computing environments.
2. History of Related Art
Grid computing refers generally to a computation network including tools and protocols for coordinated resource sharing and problem solving among pooled assets. These pooled assets, sometimes referred to as virtual organizations, can be connected to a local network or distributed across the globe. A virtual organization is typically characterized as heterogeneous (perhaps including PCs, servers, mainframes, and/or supercomputers), pseudo-autonomous (a given grid could potentially access resources in different organizations), and temporary. Gird computing is described in a variety of publications including, for example, I. Foster et al., The Anatomy of the Grid, Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations, Intl. J. of Supercomputing Applications and High Performance Computing (Fall 2001).
Automated systems are being developed to make grid computing a cost effective and efficient part of everyday computing. One application of particular interest for information technology managers is the concept of on-demand grid computing in which a service requester specifies a data processing task and solicits bids from multiple providers that are part of a particular grid. Within this disclosure, the term “Request for Proposal” (RFP) refers to the mechanism by which a resource requestor (consumer or enterprise) makes known its need for data processing resources and RFP responses refer to the responses generated by grid vendors or resource providers.
Because grid computing is an emerging field, many aspects of grid computing are, at present, rudimentary. Currently, manual inspection of each RFP response is required prior to a purchase decision. In addition, if a particular RFP response contains one or more exceptions, an administrator would have to process each of the exceptions to determine if the RFP response is otherwise eligible for consideration. If, for example, an RFP specifies that a particular task must be completed in 24 hours and an RFP response indicates an estimated completion time of 28 hours, an administrator would be required to determine if the RFP response should be considered or discarded. It would be desirable to implement a gird computing environment in which RFP responses and, specifically, exceptions contained within RFP response, were processed automatically.